"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

At least 94 journalists died in violence this year, the International Federation of Journalists said Friday, adding that Pakistan was the most dangerous place in 2010 for media workers.

"Journalists and media personnel remain prime targets for political extremists, gangsters and terrorists," the Brussels-based organisation said in a report, adding that another three died in accidents over the past 12 months.

The death toll came at the hands of "targeted killings, bomb attacks and crossfire incidents," it said.

In 2009, the total was 139 journalists.

The IFJ said 15 media workers died in Pakistan this year, adding that the majority of the annual fatalities comprised "victims of violence connected to the insurgency war in Pakistan, the drug war in Mexico as well as the political unrest in Honduras."....................

Shuster, who explained his sudden departure from MSNBC as amicable and caused by his interest in "looking around" for other work (Shuster was widely believed to have been auditioning for an anchor role at CNN) and "we had a disagreement about what happened."

Shuster, filling in on the Jim Bohannon radio show Wednesday, told listeners MSNBC could not be compared to Fox News:

"MSNBC will never be as liberal as Fox is conservative."

Mentioning a recent-and debated-study that found Fox News viewers were far more likely to be misinformed than viewers of other cable news, Shuster said "most of Fox News is not dedicated" to the kind of journalism exemplified by what he sees as the small number of "terrific journalists" at Fox. Shuster named Shepard Smith as an example, saying of the rest:

"It's dedicated to a very sharp point of view," he said, adding that there's "ample evidence on a daily basis" that Fox News is committed not to impartial news coverage, but "partisan politics."

Shuster specifically singled out Glenn Beck, calling Beck "abhorrent" for a recent segment where the Fox host accused George Soros of "helping send the jews to the death camps." Shuster said "that kind of stuff just would never fly at any other organization but Fox News."..............................

Thursday, December 30, 2010

In 2010, Glenn Beck repeatedly made up facts on Fox News show -- a barrage of lies that would force any credible news outlet to fire him. Media Matters counts down 15 of the most notable fibs that Beck told this year on Fox News, culminating with the biggest lie of all. Read More

"Ground Zero mosque" opponents launch boycott of Justin Bieber after falling for online satire in which "Bieber" comes out in favor of the mosque in an "interview" that reads in part:

Bieber went on to say that Muslims are "super cool," Christians are "lame-o-rama," and that the mosque will help "start a dialogue" with all religions about which Justin Bieber song is the most awesome.

Ryan Reilly spent most of the day digging into Fox News' national and local coverage of a purported investigation into the alleged terrorism ties of a wacky 46-year-old grandma in Indiana who converted to Islam and has a propensity for spouting anti-government rhetoric and friending suspected terrorists on Facebook. What Ryan found is best summed up by a spokesman for the Indiana State Police: "I think some of the information Fox reported was kind of taken out of context."

Surprise, surprise, historians have found glaring errors in a textbook claiming that African Americans fought in large numbers for the South during the Civil War.

A number of additional errors have been found in other textbooks being used in some Virginia classrooms, since the state ordered a review of the books, the Washington Postreports.

Among the textbooks' errors are claims that the Confederacy included 12 states and the U.S. entered World War I in 1916. Five professional scholars reviewed the books, with three of them finding "disturbing" results. State officials are scheduled to meet January 10 to review the results.

"I absolutely could not believe the number of mistakes -- wrong dates and wrong facts everywhere. How in the world did these books get approved?" said Ronald Heinemann, a former history professor at Hampden-Sydney College who reviewed "Our Virginia: Past and Present." The other book mentioned in the report was "Our America: To 1865."

Heinemann added that the book "should be withdrawn from the classroom immediately, or at least by the end of the year."...............................

County music legend Merle Haggard -- a 2010 Kennedy Center honoree -- toldRolling Stone he finds President Barack Obama to be "very different" than his depiction in the media.

"It's really almost criminal what they do with our president," Haggard said. "There seems to be no shame or anything. They call him all kinds of names all day long, saying he's doing certain things that he's not. It's just a big old political game that I don't want to be part of."

Haggard also said he doesn't think Obama is conceited, adding that the president seeks help when he needs it. "I think he knows he's in over his head," he said. "Anybody with any sense who takes that job and thinks they can handle it must be an idiot."

Speaking to the Bakersfield Californian, Haggard added that he was impressed by Obama's charisma. "I'm not one to go for the charisma, (but) I realize that's a talent and it's really not something that may or may not make his presidency better," he said. "He has that charisma. I think that's necessary and I think that when you represent America around the world, you need it. Ronald Reagan had it. I think he had it, and Bill Clinton had it."

Wrapping up his Rolling Stone interview, Haggard went on to compliment Obama's handshake, said he especially enjoyed meeting President Bill Clinton and discussed his future plans to record an album with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

(Reuters) - A right-wing Internet radio host was sentenced on Tuesday to 33 months in prison for threatening the lives of three Chicago federal appeals court judges after they upheld a local gun control law.

Harold Turner, 48, was convicted by a jury in August in Brooklyn federal court following two mistrials. He was arrested in June 2009 and charged with one count of threatening to assault or murder the three judges.

Turner used his radio broadcasts to target Judges Frank Easterbrook, Richard Posner and William Bauer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago, who had upheld a local handgun law.

He said they had acted in "a manner so sleazy and cunning as to deserve the ultimate punishment." He called for their murder and published their photographs and work addresses online.

"Turner's harsh words about these targeted judges, launched by Turner to an audience containing members of violent and extreme groups, prompted the United States Marshal's Service to assign protective details to many of the judges," court documents said.........................

Judith Miller was once an important war reporter person at The New York Times, but then she was sent to jail. But not for writing up fake stories about weapons of mass destruction that helped the Bush administration wage an illegal war!

No, it was because she protected Scooter Libby’s telling her the name of Valerie Plame, another person from that decade. Anyway, Miller has finally found an actual journalism job, and it’s with Newsmax, which is rather hilarious, because that’s not really quite journalism, especially for a former Times reporter.

Let us look at the stupid e-mails those people have sent us recently and use them to make fun of her. READ MORE »

Federal officials have reportedly opened a criminal probe into whether former Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell broke the law by using campaign money to pay personal expenses, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The feds are looking into whether O'Donnell's spent $20,000 dollars in campaign money on personal expenses and rent, MSNBC reported. The probe stems from a complaint by the group Citizens For Responsibility And Ethics In Washington (CREW) which was filed back in September.

A person speaking on condition of anonymity told the AP of the probe, and said two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents in Delaware are handling the investigation, which has not been sent to a grand jury. A spokewoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware did not immediately respond to TPM's message seeking comment...................................................

Political opinions are considered choices, and in Western democracies the right to choose one's opinions -- freedom of conscience -- is considered sacrosanct.

But recent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

If the study is confirmed, it could give us the first medical explanation for why conservatives tend to be more receptive to threats of terrorism, for example, than liberals. And it may help to explain why conservatives like to plan based on the worst-case scenario, while liberals tend towards rosier outlooks....................................

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Hey you guys, Pat Buchanan has heard about an interesting new science called “eugenics.” In fact, you could even say he is an expert race scientist! He was able to become so smart because he has one of the two good types of brains (white or Chinese) and thus can provide us with valuable insights.

For example, American schools aren’t so bad! American white kids perform better than whites in other countries, Asian-Americans outperform kids in Asia, American black kids do better than Africa, and Hispanic kids in America do better than “the kinfolk their parents or ancestors left behind.”

The problem, you see, is that we have too many minorities in our schools, and minorities have inferior “brains.” It’s so simple! READ MORE »

House Republicans are loosening the rules that allow using 'budget reconciliation' to increase the federal deficit. The key is that deficits created by tax cuts are permissible but those created by spending hikes are not.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Three giant alien spaceships are heading to Earth! Scientsits predict they will arrive in early 2011.

UFO encounters continue to increase – as documented on WWN. And today scientists at SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), an independent non-commercial organization, made a major announcement:

“Three giant spaceships are heading towards Earth. The largest one of them is 200 miles wide....

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah -- A man armed with a shotgun was killed by police on the Oquirrh Mountain Temple grounds Saturday afternoon.

Lt. Dan Starks with the South Jordan Police Department said police were called just after 12:30 p.m. Christmas day for a report of a man with a gun.

Officials say the man had a confrontation with at least one person on temple grounds. The temple was closed at the time to observe the Christmas holiday, but several people were on the grounds enjoying the weather and the views from the temple.

Police confronted the man and told him to put the weapon down. Starks said when the man did not comply, officers fired a single shot at the man. He was struck and killed................

JERUSALEM—As Christians everywhere celebrate the birth of Christ this holiday season, the world's approximately 14 million Jews are also commemorating the special holiday, as they do each year, by ceremonially re-murdering the Baby Jesus.

Details of the time-honored Jewish tradition include the baking of a baby-shaped potato pancake, which is filled with beet juice and then beheaded by a demon-horned rabbi using a specially blessed "baby-killing" knife. "I love devouring Christians' young almost as much as corrupting maidens," said Benjamin Levy, 89.

"It's a magical time for all." The re-murdering is among the most important celebrations of the Jewish calendar, second only to the springtime "Poisoning of the Easter Wells" festival.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Barack Obama, the first black president, proved to millions this year that he is either trying his best to lead the nation during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, or he is the modern-day incarnation of Adolph Hitler. One of the two.

In 2010, Obama made a number of political compromises while still trying to pursue many of the reforms laid out during his 2008 campaign. Also, he was a totalitarian monster comparable to the perpetrator of one of the worst genocides in history. He is either a president who passed a comprehensive health care measure despite staunch opposition from powerful private interests, or a radical-Islamist sympathizer bent on systematically dismantling American democracy and eradicating all human liberty. He either lowered taxes for most Americans while failing to communicate that effectively, or he is pure evil. Whichever.

Barack Obama, two of the most important people of 2010: the one who was elected to be president of the United States and execute laws to the best of his ability, and the one who murders senior citizens and hates all white people. Only history will say which he is for sure.

Every year, there is a war that rages throughout the nation. The 76 percent of Americans who call themselves Christian face a nearly existential threat from the myriad forces that come together to conspire against them. This year, the battles raged on, and TPM was there to document them.

This, friends, is the story of the War on Christmas 2010.

The Frontlines: Capitol Hill

The 2010 War on Christmas found its epicenter, perhaps inexorably, in the nation's capitol and the opening salvo was lobbed, unsurprisingly, by the Senate's most powerful liberal.

Here's what happened: The Congressional session was scheduled to end Dec. 17, giving senators and congressmen the two-week Christmas vacation that's customary for all working Americans. But Senate Majority Leader Harry "The Grinch" Reid announced that he would keep the Senate in session as long as necessary to finish its lame duck business, including the week before and after Christmas.

Immediately, senators on the right-ly pious side of the aisle fought back. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) spat at the idea, calling it "disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians." Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) called the idea of holding a vote on the START treaty near Christmas "sacrilegious." "What's going on here is just wrong," he said. "This is the most sacred holiday for Christians." It was a poignant, if incorrect, attack -- as all good Christians (and quite a few Jews) know that Easter is the most sacred holiday for the Christians.

It wasn't over though. Reid, who is Mormon, shot back from the Senate floor, "I don't need to hear the sanctimonious lectures of Sen. Kyl and DeMint to remind me of what Christmas means." Vice President Joe Biden, Catholic, played tough: "Don't tell me about Christmas. I understand Christmas."

In the end, the START treaty passed and Congress went home Dec. 22, three days before Christmas.

The Home Front

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is a big fan of Christmas, and a big believer in the need to celebrate it as a commemoration of the birth of his savior, full stop. (He also believes that Jesus is protecting us from global warming.) So when his hometown of Tulsa announced it would hold a "holiday parade" instead of a Christmas parade, he put his foot down.

"I am hopeful that the good people of Tulsa and the city's leadership will demand a correction to this shameful attempt to take Christ, the true reason for our celebration, out of the parade's title," he told the local paper. "Until the parade is again named the Christmas Parade of Lights, I will not participate."

"You know, I would expect it some other places, but not here in Oklahoma," he later told Fox News. "Last time I checked, Gretchen, Christmas meant the birth of Jesus Christ, and that's what we're celebrating, that's what I'm celebrating, that's what my 20 kids and grandkids are celebrating."

The Holiday Parade of Lights was held just the same. As Tulsa World reported the next day: "Holiday parade is full of Christmas."

The First Lady's Stealth Campaign

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who ran for governor this year, told TPM in September that his distrust of the Obamas comes from "little things:"

"I remember a little thing, like Ms. Obama saying she didn't want any Christian artifacts in the White House during Christmas time," Tancredo said. Another problem, Tancredo said, is "hosting Ramadan events there."

The Obamas did host an iftar, a Ramadan dinner, at the White House. First Lady Michelle Obama also decorated the residence with 19 Christmas trees, a 350-pound gingerbread house and thousands of Christmas decorations, many made with reusable materials to fit with the theme, "Simple Gifts."

Outside Politics

We mustn't forget that the Christmas battles also take place outside the spotlight, in the small towns and hamlets of the suburban countryside Take, for example, the events of Haymarket, Va., where a group of young men donned their grandmas' best knits and started the Christmas Sweater Club.

They walked through the halls of Battlefield High School in their finery, singing Christmas carols and spreading Christmas cheer. And then it all fell apart.

As WUSA9 reported, the administration shut them down for, as one of the students put it, trying to "maliciously maim students with the intent to injure." Their crime? Passing out miniature candy canes.

"They said the candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them," another club member said, denying that the CSC would ever participate in such yuletide violence.

Although the boys were disciplined, their candy canes taken away, this story ends on a happy note. To paraphrase WUSA9, the boys, like the Whos down in Whoville, kept singing.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

It feels like a very back-handed compliment to say that the just-released teaser for Kevin Smith's new horror picture Red State looks and feels nothing at all like a typical Kevin Smith film. But however people may respond to that the simple fact is that the teaser for Red State looks and feels nothing at all like a typical Kevin Smith film. If it didn't have his name on it I'd never have guessed this was from Smith at all, in fact.

A savage commentary on the American far right using the Westboro Baptist Church at least to some degree as its template this is a story of American conservatism gone horribly wrong. It looks to be edgy, disturbing stuff and if the film lives up to this teaser then Smith may very well have just reinvented himself. Check it below.

Almost exactly a year ago, liberal talk show host Keith Olbermann went on a rant about the right-wing bias in the media. "There is no liberal media," he said. "The media which is, after all, owned by corporations naturally leans to the right. Corporations, by definition, lean to the right, towards the status quo."

The hard-right Heritage Foundation, one of the pillars of the conservative movement, made defeating START one of its top institutional priorities. Yet 13 Republican Senators ended up bucking Heritage and voted to ratify the START treaty. Heritage ended up so far to the right that it was unable to convince any significant number of Republicans to follow its nonsensical substantive attack on START that the treaty would lead to massive nuclear proliferation and eventually to a nuclear war.

Heritage Action for America was established as 501c4 organization, which means it can do direct lobbying on the Hill and broad grassroots lobbying around the country. Killing START is one of the group’s two keystone efforts, along with a drive to push a repeal of the new health-care bill in the House. The organization is now circulating a petition to its 671,000 dues-paying members featuring a video of Romney criticizing the treaty… And Heritage Action is not stopping there. The group has a detailed plan to target lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and persuading wavering senators to oppose the treaty. Votes up for grabs include moderate Republicans like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, but also conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, D-NE, and Evan Bayh, D-IN.

Heritage even produced a video that warned that, if START passed, it would lead to a nuclear attack in 2018...................................

FRANKFORT — A state tourism board gave preliminary approval Monday for a religious theme park to apply for up to $37 million in state tax incentives.

The Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority also gave final approval Monday for the Kentucky Speedway to collect up to $20.5 million in sales tax breaks over 10 years. The deal will allow the Northern Kentucky race track to recoup up to 25 percent of the $82 million it is spending on an expansion that will allow it to host a NASCAR Sprint Cup race.

The Kentucky Speedway is slated to hold its first NASCAR Sprint Cup race in July.

The six-member board voted unanimously to approve the incentives for the Kentucky Speedway in Gallatin County and to give preliminary approval to the Ark Encounter park in Grant County.

The centerpiece of the Ark Encounter park will be a 500- by-75-foot wooden ark, billed as a replica of the biblical Noah's Ark. The proposed project has garnered national and international attention, with critics questioning whether granting state tax incentives to the project would violate laws separating church and state.

The Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet will employ a third-party consultant to do an independent analysis of financial projections for the park.

If the consultant finds the project won't generate enough economic activity, the board could decide not to grant the full 25 percent return on the $150 million investment over 10 years. It also could decide not to grant any incentives.

It probably will take about four months to complete the independent analysis, tourism officials said Monday....................

Sigh. Better crisis communications needed in the right-wing noise machine. Apparently before Haley Barbour recanted his praise for the segregationist White Citizens Councils, Fox News had a rather different take on the story: "Haley Barbour Fends off Left-Wing Racial Smears with Ease."

Her fans will hail her new book as another folksy and forthright Palin put-down of the liberal elite. Her critics will dismiss it as tendentious tripe.

And many people probably won't care one way or the other.

That's too bad, because the book does tell us a lot -- some of it good, some not so good -- about a woman many believe has an eye on the White House.

It tells us she's a loving wife and mother, professes deep respect for our American ideals of equality and freedom, and voices legitimate concern about the world we're leaving our children.

It also tells us she has the courage of her convictions for standing by her anti-choice principles and giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome, even though she admits the prospect scared her until she actually held the baby.

The political Palin who emerges is prone to unsupported generalizations, wants simple answers to complex questions, has no sympathy with bipartisanship, mistakes sarcasm for wit, prefers derision to debate and, like other zealots of both the right and the left, fails to realize that the great heart of America is moderate, alternating pragmatically between just-right-of-center and just-left-of-center.

One of the most interesting things "America by Heart" reveals about Mrs. Palin is that she seems to know less than she ought about our history.

This is not a minor point, because she makes a very big deal of using the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as warrants for her political agenda.

Without judging her platform, a reader can legitimately ask: If she doesn't know history as well as she should, what else doesn't she know?

The former Alaskan governor informs us twice, on Pages 110 and 189, that John Adams took part in the Constitutional Convention and was "a leading participant."

Oops.

Adams wasn't at the Constitutional Convention. He wasn't even in the country; he was in England as U.S. minister to the Court of St. James's.

This is like writing a history of early Christianity and saying that St. Peter was at the foot of the cross or St. Paul was at the Last Supper.

In another instance, Mrs. Palin gets a piece of history partly right but, misleadingly, leaves out the ending.

Casting herself as a defender of religion in the public square, which she claims is under liberal attack, the author tells us how Benjamin Franklin suggested that the Constitutional Convention begin each session with a prayer. She ends the story there, leaving the impression that the delegates adopted Franklin's motion.

They did not.

Nor are there simple answers when it comes to applying the great American belief that we're all created equal, the bedrock of our national identity.

Mrs. Palin says that liberals unfairly accuse "patriotic Americans" of racism for opposing President Obama's policies and for wanting "a smaller federal government and a return to federalism -- otherwise known as states' rights."

Her defensiveness is understandable, but the concept of states' rights does have a long, dishonorable and undeniable connection with racial injustice. Supporters of slavery and racial segregation routinely hid behind states' rights.

Anyone who would have waited for the Southern states to end slavery or segregation on their own would have waited a mighty long time. The author acknowledges as much when she writes, "Ending discrimination against African Americans by some American states was one instance in which the federal government rightly stepped in and forced change."

She then goes on to charge that "since then, advocates of increased federal authority have abused this noble cause to advance a big-government agenda."

"America by Heart" is a mix of autobiography and political propaganda, padded with long quotations from a host of luminaries including Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, Margaret Thatcher, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Milton Friedman, John McCain, George Washington, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Alexis de Tocqueville.

It's a little disingenuous, because Mrs. Palin cherry-picks congenial quotations from people who would otherwise disagree with her.

Then there's Thomas Paine, the great Revolutionary War pamphleteer. Mrs. Palin uses a quotation from Paine's celebrated 1776 tract "The Crisis" as her book's epigraph:

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

You can't go wrong quoting Paine if you're trying to stir things up.

She also refers to her own political philosophy as "Commonsense Constitutional Conservatism." That's either a nod to "Common Sense," Paine's famous tract arguing for American independence, or to Glenn Beck.

But little else connects Paine and Palin.

Paine, an adherent of the French Revolution, was about as far left as you could get in the late 18th century. A poster boy for Mrs. Palin's "patriotic Americans"? Only if they're willing to overlook the liberal warts.

Things are not always as simple as we'd like them to be.

Philadelphia Inquirer book review editor Michael D. Schaffer has a Ph.D. in American history from Yale University.

An Oklahoma City man did a perfect imitation of Republican Senator David Vitter by pretending to be autistic and hiring babysitters to change his poopy diapers while he “became sexually aroused.” Apparently you just put an ad on the Oklahoma version of Craigslist and say your “autistic son” needs a babysitter and then you just show up at their house in a diaper and the Oklahoma ladies are all, “Well okay, money’s money ….” READ MORE »

Science has finally proven what was always totally obvious: People who get their news from Fox News are the stupidest fucking idiots to ever exist. These cretins have literally no idea what’s going on, with anything.

Whether it’s believing that Republicans opposed TARP (it was a big business Republican program created by the Republican administration of George W. Bush, a Republican) or being unable to comprehend that average temperatures are rapidly rising (because it still snows in winter), the Fox News viewer is dangerous because the Fox News viewer isn’t the kind to just quietly contemplate all the wrong shit they know — they have to talk about it, to everyone, which is why you can no longer even call a motherfucking plumber in this Nation of Idiots without having to politely tell him a hundred times to please shut the hell up about Barack Obama being an African Soviet or whatever.

(We know, come on, that’s why we voted for him! Of course we were wrong about that, but whatever.) READ MORE »

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data ... we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Last night on his Fox News show, Sean Hannity interviewed Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and expressed his outrage that Weiner wants the rich to pay more in taxes. Noting that Weiner is from New York, Hannity said, “Let’s go through the New York numbers.” The Fox News host then said if Weiner had his way, New Yorkers would be paying “55, 60″ percent of “earned income,” a figure he calculated by including federal, state, and city taxes, sales tax, property tax, estate tax and “other hidden taxes.” “Why do you think you have a right to tax 60 percent of people’s money?” Hannity asked.

Weiner replied that it’s not about wanting to tax anyone, that “it is just about choices.” “I choose to stay on the side of the middle class. You want to defend the rich,” Weiner told Hannity, adding, “You want to borrow for Rupert Murdoch’s tax break,” referring to Hannity’s boss and billionaire News Corp. chairman. However, Hannity wouldn’t budge, and he didn’t dispute his love for Murdoch:

WEINER: If you give a tax cut to Rupert Murdoch. — We got to borrow the money to pay Rupert Murdoch’s tax break. You want to do that?

HANNITY: Listen, thank God, you know why for Rupert Murdoch? — Rupert Murdoch is a job creator. Rupert Murdoch is a taxpayer, Rupert Murdoch donates to charity and more than you do Congressman.

WEINER: He’s a very fine man. He’s a very fine man but that is not the question. The question is, you want to give him a tax cut and borrow it from my kids, no deal. No deal.

HANNITY: You know what, thank God Rupert Murdoch created a job for me so, I could tell you, you’re taking way too much in spending too much of the taxpayers dollars.

It’s unclear how Hannity concluded that some New Yorkers will end up paying 60 percent of their income on taxes. He seems to just be adding up certain tax rate percentages, but of course, that’s nothow itworks.

But while Hannity is defending Murdoch’s billions, other billionaires are calling for the rich to sacrifice more. “I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes, billionaire Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway William Buffett said recently. “We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Time was you could rely on birthers to fight the good fight to the bitter end. No amount of reason or common sense would stand in their way. They were crazy and they liked it that way. No longer, I'm afraid.

Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, an Army surgeon, seemed like the kind of birther you could rely on. We've been following his story closely for months. He refused his deployment on the grounds that any orders originating with President Obama were unlawful. He was prepared to throw his Army career away and risk jail time to prove that Obama was not eligible to be President. Threatened with court-martial, he didn't back down. His plan, eventually thwarted by a military judge, was to use the court-martial proceedings to conduct discovery on Obama's birth/origin.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Even before taking office, Republican Govs.-elect John Kasich (OH) and Scott Walker (WI) swiftly delivered on their “promises to kill America’s future” by rebuking a total of $1.2 billion in stimulus funding for high-speed rail projects in their states. Shunning the $810 million for the long-planned Wisconsin rail project, Walker promised to kill the Milwaukee-Madison link if President Obama tried “to force this down the throats of the taxpayers.”

But campaign rhetoric has very real consequences. Last Thursday — on the same day the World Congress for High Speed Rail announced the next HSR Congress will be held in America for the first time — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pulled the funding from Ohio and Wisconsin, offering it instead to states more eager to spur economic development. What’s more, because of Walker’s narrow-minded politics, the Spanish train manufacturing company Talgo, which moved into Wisconsin for this project, is closing its Milwaukee plant and taking the much-needed jobs with it:

Talgo Inc., the Spanish manufacturer of high-speed train cars, will abandon its plant in Milwaukee in 2012, according to Nora Friend, a spokeswoman for the company.[...]

“We can’t stay and manufacture in Milwaukee without the high-speed rail to Madison,” Friend said. “This is terrible news.”

Friend said the state’s decision to back away from the high-speed rail project sends a terrible message to businesses considering locating in the state.

“We were encouraged by the business community,” Friend said. “We are really discouraged by what has happened.”

State residents should also be discouraged, she said. Talgo and the construction of the rail line would have created jobs badly needed in the construction industry.

“For anybody to think that there is another $800 million to invest in another project is foolish,” she said. “There is no other pool of money.”

Talgo currently employs 40 people in Milwaukee, WI and “was hoping to grow their staff to as many as 125 to fulfill the orders” that current Gov. Jim Doyle (D) and his administration had made in preparation for the project. Those orders would’ve spurred some 13,000 badly-needed jobs in a state facing a 7.8 percent unemployment rate. (Ohio will lose 16,000 jobs.) Instead, Talgo plans to take that business to three of the states that will share in the federal money taken away from Wisconsin and Ohio, most notably Florida.

Florida’s Gov.-elect Rick Scott (R) also sounded off against high-speed rail during his campaign but, unlike Walker and Kasich, has waffled on whether he’d actually kill the project. With over $2 billion in stimulus money and the prospect of new business flocking to the state, Scott isn’t as willing to shun such potential economic development as his Tea Party brethren.

But Wisconsinites should not be fooled by the flight of business. As he said on election night, Walker’s victory means “Wisconsin is open again for business” — regardless of what actually happens.

A former health insurance insider turned whistleblower says that he was not only surprised at how “easy” it was to manipulate members of the news media over the years, but also reveals that he routinely “wined and dined” reporters from major news outlets – including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – in return for favorable coverage.

In his new book Deadly Spin, Wendell Potter describes how his chief function as a senior public relations officer at two of the largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States – Humana and Cigna – was to “perpetuate myths that had no other purpose but to sustain those companies’ extraordinary high profitability.”

But in an extended interview with Raw Story last week, Potter went further, revealing that he lunched with reporters at major media outlets for years – including journalists at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – as well as those from local and regional media, in most cases picking up the tab, which he says directly resulted in positive coverage of the companies he represented.

In an email to Raw Story Sunday night, New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha responded, "The claims are unsubstantiated and absurd since no names of reporters, examples of stories or other pertinent facts are provided to support these claims."................................

Just to remind everyone: the judge who declared part of the Health Care law unconstitutional today? He's a part owner of a GOP consulting firm that among other things represents Boehner, Bachmann, McCain and others who've spent the last two years arguing that reform was unconstitutional.